JPMorgan Chase's failure to timely disclose a major change in how it measured risk could become the centerpiece for an enforcement action by U.S. securities regulators as they probe the bank in connection ...

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase's failure to timely disclose a major change in how it measured risk could become the centerpiece for an enforcement action by U.S. securities regulators as they probe the bank in connection with its multibillion dollar trading loss. By omitting the change from its earnings release in April, the bank disguised a spike in the riskiness of a particular trading portfolio by cutting in half its value-at-risk number. ...

Working through a long list of legal problems, JPMorgan Chase is starting the new year with another steep payout to the government.
The bank plans to reach as soon as this week roughly US$2 billion in criminal and civil settlements with federal authorities who suspect that it ignored signs of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, according to people briefed on the case.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) agreed yesterday, to settle the $17.3 billion Madoff case, and the bank will now pay $1.7 billion to settle the reporting violations. JPMorgan also will pay $350 million to settle a related case by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and $543 million to resolve US Bankruptcy Court actions by the trustee seeking Madoff assets on behalf of burned investors.
The $2.6 billion settlement involves the largest ever payment made by a bank in a case involving money laundering violations.
The news caused the stock price to drop 1.15% to $58.32.

The Senate Banking committee held a confirmation hearing for two agencies — the SEC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — this morning, and as you may have guessed, the standout cross-examination was from Elizabeth Warren.

Susan Beck at American Lawyer got a trove of documents as a result of a FOIA on an SEC inspector general report on whether the agency’s suit against Goldman over an Abacus CDO was politically motivated. Beck identified one attorney who was critical of how timid the investigation was, by virtue of failing to pursue more senior executives, as James Kidney, and examined how Kidney was effectively sidelined during case development. A Bloomberg story wrote up Kidney’s recent retirement speech, which was blunt about his disappointments in the SEC.